Douglas Todd: We must stand on guard for Canada

Douglas Todd, Vancouver Sun columnist07.12.2014

Sahar Shafia, 15, of Montreal, and her sisters were murdered by family members, including their father, in 2009. Yet people don’t need to resort to physical violence or break laws to contravene Canadian liberal democracy, warn Ujjal Dosanjh and Farid Rohani. With mass immigration, for example, culture and religion are combining in Canada to add to inequality for women in patriarchal families; which greatly restrict gender roles and oppose inter-marriage.

Ujjal Dosanjh bears the scars on his skull and the crushed fingers that remind him of when liberal democracy failed in Canada.

After the former federal Liberal cabinet minister and B.C. premier denounced Sikh terrorism several decades ago, he was not only condemned as a “heretic” by some Metro Vancouver Sikh leaders, he was beaten with a steel bar.

It was a dark time for tolerance in Canada. But, as far as Dosanjh and other immigrants are concerned, a new wave of disturbing incidents should warn Canadians to do more to stand up for the country’s liberal democratic values.

The federal government reports there have been more than 100 so-called honour killings in Canada of young women and men by Muslim and Sikh families. And second-generation Canadians have developed into religious extremists while being raised in Surrey, Toronto and Calgary; going off to fight in Syria, India, Sri Lanka and Iraq. Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney said last month that homegrown religious radicals pose a grave security risk.

And people don’t have to resort to physical violence or break laws to contravene Canadian liberal democracy. With mass immigration, Dosanjh worries culture and religion are combining in Canada to add to inequality for women in patriarchal families; which greatly restrict gender roles and oppose inter-marriage.

Farid Rohani, head of Vancouver’s Laurier Institute, shares Dosanjh’s concerns. Rohani cited how male Muslim students in Toronto and Halifax have recently campaigned for what they considered their religious right to avoid working with females — sparking some to decry how “religious freedom” was trumping gender rights.

“I think there is something fundamentally frightening happening to Canadian society. It shows we’re not being vigilant enough,” says Dosanjh.

Queen’s University philosopher Will Kymlicka and Simon Fraser University’s Samir Gandesha maintain Canadian multiculturalism has so far generally been able to accommodate ethno-cultural differences. But the scholars suggest religion could pose a larger danger to multicultural ideals.

Canada’s national anthem calls on God to help keep the nation “glorious and free.” But the principles of liberal democracy have been “distorted for many newcomers” who are religious, says Rohani, whose Laurier Institute provides a forum to discuss multiculturalism.

“Celebration of our diversity has turned into a policy allowing for divisions. Forced and arranged marriages, honour killings, female genital mutilation, teaching of hate towards homosexuals or death warrants against apostates are the result of the lack of discussion around our core value of a liberal democracy and the distorted concept of religious freedom.”

The fears of Rohani and Dosanjh seem supported by national polling. An Angus Reid survey coordinated last year by Andrew Grenville and Vancouver’s Shachi Kurl found seven of 10 Canadians agree: “Minorities should do more to fit in with the mainstream in my province.”

And even though Quebec’s proposed Charter of Secular Values was mocked by the English-language media, four in 10 Canadians outside Quebec still supported its ban on religious symbols at work. Indeed, 62 per cent of those in English-speaking don’t want Muslim women in the workplace wearing a burka, which covers their face.

An earlier Environics poll exposed huge gaps based on religion. While 81 per cent of all Canadians said “immigrant groups should adapt to mainstream Canadian beliefs about the rights and roles of women,” support for that statement was only 36 per cent among Muslims. Environics also discovered only 11 per cent of Canadians want Shariah law used to settle disputes, but 53 per cent of Canadian Muslims were in favour of the religious rules.

Rohani, a businessman who has sat on RCMP diversity committees, and Dosanjh, a lawyer (whose biography will be released on Aug. 5), want prospective immigrants to Canada to be taught the essentials of liberal democracy and equality.

“Speaking as an immigrant, if we choose Canada as the best place to come and live, then why aren’t we following its values?” Dosanjh says. “If we want to recreate the society we left behind, why don’t we just stay there? It’s incumbent upon us newcomers to embrace the whole of society, not just its dollars.”

Tung Chan, former head of the government-financed immigrant services society, SUCCESS, is a friend of Rohani’s. But he’s more sanguine about the religion-rooted hazards facing liberal democracy.

Chan would prefer not to highlight the difficulties associated with what he claims in Canada is only the “one per cent who are mal-adapted” and don’t embrace free choice and equality.

Although Chan agrees with Rohani and Dosanjh that new immigrants (and all Canadians) should be taught about the country’s laws, Constitution, and Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Chan takes a hands-off approach beyond that.

“After the teaching is done,” Chan says, “whether they choose to accept or reject our value system is entirely up to them as long as they do not break the law.”

Dosanjh strongly disagrees, maintaining Canadians shouldn’t be so shy about upholding democratic principles. “Society is not just governed by laws. We have our values, our ethics, our integrity. It’s not a written law, for example, that we should allow people to marry whoever they want to marry.”

Dosanjh says he has seen many immigrant parents pressure offspring into arranged marriages. Survey show immigrants are more inclined than Canadian-born citizens to forbid their children marrying outside their religion.

Then there’s homosexuality. Rohani and Dosanjh recognize it’s not only many immigrants who believe, often based on religion, that same-sex relationships are wrong. And the two know it’s not against the law to feel appalled by homosexual relationships.

Both Rohani and Dosanjh are aware of widespread anti-homosexual beliefs among many religious immigrants, which can lead to actual discrimination. And University of B.C.-trained scholar Justin Tse has cited the strong degree to which many Chinese Christian immigrants find Canada’s human rights laws regarding homosexuality “ridiculous.”

As a member of national citizenship boards, whose family immigrated from Iran, Rohani believes Canadians have “let their guard down” about protecting the principles of liberal democracy and choice.

He has met some of the hundreds of immigrant students from Saudi Arabia on the University of B.C. campus, where he has been shocked by their lack of respect for the value of individual freedom. He laments the Saudi students’ values are rooted in their theocratic country of origin, where conversion away from the Islamic faith is punishable by death.

Given the power of religion to accomplish both good or ill, Rohani and Dosanjh are particularly troubled about the expansion of religious private schools in Canada, many of which receive government funds. More young Muslims, Sikhs, Catholics, evangelicals and others, they say, are enrolling at the religious schools, where immigrants often predominate.

Since Canadian governments are reluctant to “intrude” in the running of religious schools, Dosanjh says, it’s extremely hard to know whether students at such disparate schools are being taught to accept others or are assured they have free choice on their beliefs and practices.

To avoid falling into the mute trap of what they call typical Canadian “humility” about what makes this country attractive around the world, Dosanjh and Rohani make it clear they’re standing on guard for liberal democracy.

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Douglas Todd: We must stand on guard for Canada

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